City of Basketball Love

By Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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The magical, imaginary ball held special qualities. It went everywhere Jalil Bethea commanded. Tethered to his hand, he could dribble it between his legs, or behind his back. His world was his court, dribbling and shooting on a cracked pavement, an asphalt court, his bedroom rug or bathroom tiles. 

He never missed, either. Once he released it, his right arm cocked like a swan’s neck, he knew the shot was going in. Jacqueline Kamper, his mother, would catch him and shake her head, watching as her three-year-old walking through a store alley was shooting his imaginary friend. His father, Steven Bethea, would roll his eyes and grin, seeing Jalil dribble his invisible ball through a maze of pretend defenders.

In time, Jalil’s parents found out it might not have been the imaginary ball that possessed the magic. It was the hands that held it. A basketball, a baseball, a football, anything Jalil had in his hands carried a mystic quality. In the tangible world, the ball Jalil threw or passed had a habit of landing in the glove of a first baseman, a receiver’s hands, or go spinning through the twine of a basketball net.

The rest of the country is catching up.

Bethea, Archbishop Wood’s gangly 6-foot-4, 170-pound rising senior combo guard, is ESPN’s No. 9-ranked player in the nation, up from No. 48 a year ago and up from a national unknown the year before that. He has made incremental steps to reach this point, and his senior season promises to be record-breaking. He lists Syracuse, Miami, Kansas, Villanova, UConn and Alabama as his final six schools among more than 30 of the nation’s top programs that have offered him a scholarship.

Bethea, the reigning Catholic League MVP, returns as arguably the best player in the city this year, along with Imhotep Charter’s Ahmad Nowell and Archbishop Ryan’s Thomas Sorber (Georgetown). Last week, Bethea led the star-studded Team Final AAU team at the EYBL Peach Jam in North Augusta, South Carolina, averaging 18.6 points a game.

Bethea has a real strong chance to graduate as Wood’s all-time leading scorer, surpassing Wood’s current all-time mark of 1,533 established by 2021 Wood graduate Rahsool Diggins, who was a two-time Catholic League MVP now at UMass. As a first-year varsity starter his junior year, Bethea scored 649 points (on 85/186 shooting 45.7-percent from three-point range) and he should easily obliterate that total this season, giving him an outside chance to become the Philadelphia Catholic League’s all-time leading scorer, a distinction currently held by Neumann-Goretti all-time great Ja’Quan Newton, a four-year starter who scored 1,972 points.

Bethea will enter his senior year with 1,047 career points—and Wood figures to play deep into March.

He could not care less about points. He wants to win.

Bethea is going to go to a major college program, he is probably going to be Wood’s all-time leading career scorer and the only thing missing is winning.

That will depend on Bethea.

The Vikings finished 19-9 overall last season — with three of their setbacks coming against Catholic League rival Roman Catholic, the two daggers being Roman’s 66-56 victory in the PIAA Class 6A state semifinals and the Cahillites’ 66-59 win in the Catholic League semifinals at the Palestra on Feb. 22 (after a 77-56 Wood loss in the regular season).

“Jalil can be a Reggie Miller or a Ray Allen, one of those big-time players who come off screens, because Jalil shoots so well,” Wood coach John Mosco said. “He gets his shot off and his best basketball is still way ahead of him. He has not really gotten on a weight-training program, so he is only going to get bigger and stronger. Jalil is a very good athlete. He’s a great kid. We’re going to be as good as Jalil is going to take us. We have the pieces where we can be really good. Last year, our maturity was down, but we didn’t have a lot of starters back.

“We could be the best team in the city. Jalil will need to elevate his teammates for us to get there. He took 200 more shots than everyone else on the team, which I have no problem with, but he also must involve his teammates. Jalil is a strong rebounder. People don’t realize that. He averaged 7.6 rebounds a game, and 187 were on the defensive end.

“Jalil will need to trust his teammates, and that starts with him trusting himself, and trusting me, where he has a lot more to give than scoring. We know we’re way better with the ball in his hands. He needs to trust his teammates will get him the ball when he’s free. I love Jalil because he likes feedback. I used to break his stones over being a better defender, and last year he defended the best player. Whenever you tell him that he can’t do something, he loves to prove you wrong. This will be Jalil’s team. He likes hard coaching because he knows I want him to be better. Jalil may get upset for a second, then he’ll realize that what we are doing is to bring out the best in him.”

Bethea did not initially take that well his freshman year. For the first time in his young life, he sat the bench at Wood. The Vikings were a loaded team and often Wood assistant coach John Huggins would have to defuse Jalil's frustration.

When he did find the court, Mosco stressed, the only one who can stop Jalil Bethea is Jalil Bethea. Opposing teams tried taking him out of his comfort zone, pushing him around, getting physical, because he carries a hothead reputation.

“Jalil is like a quiet assassin,” Kamper, his mother, says. “This is just my view, from what I see on the court, he turns into a lion. He turns on that basketball mode. Off the court, he’s the sweetest person on earth. He makes things tough for himself. He beats himself up. He has to get better with that. If he misses a shot, he will dwell on it.”

There were times Kamper would drive him home after games and he would replay the game in his head. She learned not to say anything to him.

Jalil’s temper, Steven Bethea says laughing, comes from him.

“Jalil has that fight in him, like I did,” said Steven, who met Muhammad Ali when “The Greatest” was living in the Philadelphia area in the early-1970s. “He has to get rid of that a little bit. He has to learn to let his play do the talking and leave the talk trash behind. Jalil is still maturing. He is a sore loser, like I was. If I lost a big game, I would walk off the court and not say anything to anyone. That’s Jalil. I like that fight in him. 

“I boxed growing up. I would see Muhammad Ali all the time when I was a kid. I keep an eight-ounce pair of red boxing gloves in my trunk. I let my boys know if they see those red gloves coming, they better know they’re in trouble (laughs). But with Jalil, it’s energy better used playing rather than talking. He’s coming around and getting better.”

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Jalil Bethea’s story may not be written if Steven Bethea did not right himself. He is a 6-3, round, robust man who projects street wisdom because he lived and somehow managed to survive the depths of the streets. He is going to turn 60 on July 28 yet lived more than a few lifetimes with what he saw and where he’s been. He was once looking at a promising future as an all-city track star at Ben Franklin High School who went on to the military. Steven grew up a guy with a temper who would fight you anywhere, anytime. It may explain why Jalil is so fearless on the court and explain where his fiery hoops persona comes from.

A good future seemed just beyond Steven’s fingertips, when something else intervened.

“I let Jalil know, I won’t run from my past and I won’t hide from it,” Steven says. “I was homeless. Cocaine was my devil. I used to sleep on people’s porches and abandon cars. That’s where the drug took me. Jalil doesn’t know the extent of my addiction. I never want my son to go my way. I don’t have to fight my addiction anymore. I’m just not doing it. I turned my life around and Jalil wouldn’t be where he is if I didn’t. When I got out, I said to myself, ‘It’s time to step up and be a man.’ I had to soul search and find out who I was. I had two boys that I needed to raise. I vowed my sons would never call another man ‘Daddy.’”

Steven was in and out of prison for 20 years. He has been clean for a decade now and been out since 2010. He is emerging from a shadow just as his son is emerging into the national basketball spotlight. Steven speaks to youth groups and visits prisons to lecture on addiction. He works overnights for Horizon House, a homeless shelter for active drug addicts, where he mentors.

When Jalil was 14, Steven recalled a time they took a drive down Frankford Avenue through Kensington. It was a cathartic moment, as the father told the son, pointing to various people they passed by, “At one point in their lives, they had dreams just like you, but drugs overpowered them. This is where you have to be super strong against little urges, even starting with marijuana, even if it means drinking a cooler. I see these kids today and they don’t even have a chance. It is one of those things that makes me sad, seeing kids Jalil’s age with all the talent in the world and going nowhere. If I had a chance today to go back in time, I would take this 59-year-old brain and talk some sense into that 22-year-old kid I was who was making mistake after mistake.

“The least I can do is try to change the course of someone else.”

Together, Steven and Jacqueline created a unified front, along with the Wood community, to insulate Jalil from the streets. Jalil lived with his dad from the ages 6 to 11, and currently lives with his mother. Steven and Jacqueline made sure Jalil’s circle was far different than the environment they grew up in, making sure if Jalil wasn’t playing basketball, he was playing football, baseball, or running around on a soccer field.

“I went with him everywhere around East Oak Lane and Germantown, when he was younger,” Jacqueline said. “Things were bad a decade ago, when he was a baby, and they’re even worse now. There is no way I was going to let him out of my sight, or not know where he was. He’s grown and I’m still that way with him (laughs).”

Jalil grew seven inches the summer going into his freshman year at Wood. Mosco wanted to slowly ingratiate him into the program. He knew Jalil had Division I talent as a freshman, and by his sophomore year, Mosco began letting the reins loose. Jalil tasted some portion of winning that season, when the Vikings reached the PIAA Class 6A state championship, where they lost to their old nemesis, Roman, 78-65 in the 2022 PIAA state title game.

“Some things you don’t forget,” Jalil said, laughing. “The most important thing for me is winning. I know everyone will be looking at me this season. I am really competitive. I think the hard work I put in is starting to show. The growth spurt came when I was around 13, when I went from 5-7 to 6-2, and grew a few more inches since I’ve been in high school. The basketball skills came with me because everything I used to do was still there. As I got better, I started to see the game differently. I use my head more and think. But the game has slowed down for me. I know there’s going to be pressure this year and I can’t wait.”

Jalil has a 9-year-old brother Saleem, who is autistic and worships the ground Jalil walks on. Steven frequently reminds Jalil, “Your dad isn’t as young as he used to be. If something were to happen to me …” to which Jalil will interrupt and tell him, “Dad, don’t worry, I got him.” There is a tattoo on Jalili’s hand that says, “I am my brother’s keeper” for Saleem.

As the time winds down for Jalil’s national commitment, Steven has been managing much of the recruiting process. He stresses to Jalili to have fun being a teenager. When he has time at work, Steven will YouTube Jalil’s highlights.

“Hey, I have no problem saying I live through Jalil’s success,” Steven said. “He is my second chance at life. My goal with him is simple: I want him to succeed not only in basketball, but in life. I love to see him graduate college and have something beyond basketball. If these colleges want him, he better get a major that will provide for him when basketball is over. He wants to be an engineer. Jalil is a blessing. I get to live my life watching him progress. I may have messed up, but you better damn well believe I wasn’t about to let him mess up. It makes me emotional how proud I am of my son.”

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.